Wednesday, March 15, 2006

-Terror Chic and Department of Soviet Kitsch Prints for Sale or Trade-

The following prints are about the aesthetization of power, especially in the relation to politics. With 'Terror Chic' we have art to accompany those of on the side of terror in the current War on Terror. Given that the leaders of the New World Order have created a false dualism with this war by creating an imaginary enemy and then defining themselves against it, its high time we took this definition to its logical conculsion and start creating some cultural products for this historical period. Given that the Terror side of the current war is conveniently loose on definition we here at Frick, Frick & Frick did some research but all the ideology stuff that came up was pretty flimsy and didn't realy give a concrete difference between those on the side of Terror and those on the side of Freedom(with a capital F). So all we were left with was the image of terror and it seems that that is all there is to differentiate it from the its detractors. So in short, this war is really between competing images. Freedom and Democracy on one side are armed with bald eagles, American flags, and a multicultural cast of talking heads who bark at us viewers of this newly digitized spectacle about the need for legitimacy and other farces. Terror pretty much has dudes with ski masks and submachine guns. With both those for Democracy and those for Terror, the gun is symbolic of the phallus and thus Man's source of power. Like a phallus, a gun can get all hot and bothered and needs to let it all out and so sprays those unlucky enough to be in the way. Unlike a phallus, however, the spray causes the (potential) loss of life instead of its (potential) creation. This is because in its symbolic form the phallus has been reversed. The face of Terror is contrary to change. So I chose the loveable, Belushi-like mug of Carlos the Jackal who, for those who don't know, was the Osama bin Laden of the 1980s. He entertained the masses with plane hijackings, bombings and other dastardly deeds(such as kidnapping high ranking Opec oil ministers). Everything about him was reflective of pop culture and its obessesion with images. The son of a Marxist-Leninist millionaire he grew up thinking proletarian revolution was a sharing fine wine with buxom beauties on the Riviera. Born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, he recieved the moniker Carlos the Jackal from the media when they found Frederick Forsyth's mass market spy novel, The Jackal, among his things in a hotel room. It seems the simulacra of the terror image is never ending. And so he is emblazoned here in the following prints as the epitome of the dark chicness that Terror exudes. The unfiltered cigarette smoking, airplane hijacking, car bombing, everywhere and nowhere constitutive Other to Western Democracy that is Terror with a capital T.

The Department of Soviet Kitsch works are about the cultural crisis of Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. While the Western 'free' press remarked that democracy was coming to the land of babushkas and Daniil Kharms, they really meant massive privatization of industry at the hands of multinationals and thus the chipping away of a culture that is uniquely Russian. Down with statues of Lenin, up with the new reign of the Golden Arches. Now you won't hear any drunken calls for a return to food lines, Khrushchev lovin' bureaucrats and the Comintern from me, but the Soviet Union reflects the outcome of what happens when a culture that has always been between East and West has a go with 20th century Jacobinism. Whatever one can say about the USSR, it was a Russian project and so it was the duty of Russians to fix. The current state of things do not constitute as such and seem much more like a waiting period for Mother Russia to collect her senses. The following prints reflect this cultural confusion.

*Terror Chic*

Carlos Yellow $15 USD or Trade

Carlos Blue $15 USD or Trade

Carlos/Carlos red$25 USD or Trade

Carlos Side Up$25 USD or Trade

Carlos/Carlos black$25 USD or Trade

A Conflict of Interest$25 USD or Trade

*Dept. of Soviet Kitsch*

It's the Real Thing blue$15 USD or Trade

It's the Real Thing green$15 USD or Trade

Limonka Girls set$25 USD or Trade

Lenin Coca Cola Wheel set$50 USD or Trade

(Note: I'm more interested in trading than monetary transactions. I'm interested in books, music, flags and other art in terms of trade. Oh, and all that gun/penis stuff was just some obligatory Lacan. We are dealing with Art here people! ;- )